Crave

LG Wine at CTIA 2009

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

Even though the LG Wine was released back in January, we weren't able to have a hands-on with the device until CTIA 2009. The Wine comes in this nice burgundy color to go along with the wine theme, and is a simple mid-tier flip phone from U.S. Cellular. There's also a white version.

The most unique thing about the Wine is that it has four dedicated hot keys underneath the display. They correspond to the messaging interface, the alarm clock, the images folder, and the U.S. Cellular's easyedge Web portal. It also has a very roomy and tactile keypad with huge numbers on the keys for easier legibility.

The LG Wine has four dedicated hot keys

(Credit: Nicole Lee/CNET)

It has fairly simple features like a 1.3-megapixel camera, a speakerphone, Bluetooth, and voice command. It's available from U.S. Cellular for $29.95 with a two-year agreement, though you can get it without a contract for $179.95.

Dr. Michael Breus, the Sleep Doctor, joins us today for what is quite possibly the most informative show we've ever done. No iPhone OS 3.0 news here today. We've got something so much better. It's our 300th episode, and we're still not canceled! *Fingers crossed.*

(Credit: Warner Bros./Wilson Tang)

That's right, we're still amazed. 300!

If you've ever listened to the show, you know we push the limit of acceptable behavior--even on the Interwebs. Justin has his poop jokes. Wilson has his stuffed peppers. And Jeff has his general hatred of humanity and happiness. Thank you, our listeners, for keeping us alive and giving us a reason to come into work every day. Go out and celebrate St. Patrick's Day with your friends, call The 404, and let us know why you listen to the show. 1-866-404-CNET (2638).

We couldn't think of any better way to celebrate than to have Dr. Michael Breus on the show. Why would an Internet culture show have a sleep doctor on? Because boy do we love sleep, and we promise you won't be disappointed. He talks about how long you should sleep. What you should eat before you go to bed. Whether clear liquor or dark liquors will give you a hang over. We cover it all. Thank you so much for your questions. He's got a great blog too.

Celebrating episode 301 tomorrow, we've got debbiefromtoronoto coming on the show. She's going to bring a big bag of goodies. We can't wait to get a hold of those ketchup potato chips. And for 302, we've got Jonathan Coulton, musician and generally cool dude. Be prepared for more awesomeness.

So physics actually does come in useful!

(Credit: VineyardFresh)

In my current delicate condition, expected to continue until July, I am not able to drink nearly as much wine as I would like. I find myself limited to inhaling deeply near the wine glass and trying to get some satisfaction from that (it doesn't work). This leaves the total number of legal drinkers in our house at exactly one, and one who doesn't drink a lot to begin with. So a bottle of wine can last a good long time in our house.

If, that is, a bottle of wine could last a good long time. Which it can't, really, once it's been opened.

But now, VineyardFresh promises to preserve open bottles of wine by stopping the process of oxidation. According to the Web site, you simply spray two quick bursts of a mixture of argon with a small percentage of nitrogen, and then "a combination of chemistry and physics" takes over and creates a protective barrier between remaining wine and the air left in the bottle, preventing oxidation.

A single canister should be enough to keep 50 bottles of wine fresh. I can't tell you if it works yet, though--ask me in July. Or buy your own for around $25, and you can tell me if it's any good.

(Credit: U.S. Cellular)

U.S. Cellular has just announced the LG Wine, a simple mid-tier handset with features like a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, a one-touch speakerphone, and voice command. Appropriately, it's available in red and white versions.

You can get it for $179.95 without a contract or $29.95 after a two-year agreement and a mail-in rebate of $50.

(Credit: Dvice)

Now this is what we call a home theater cabinet. Furniture with built-in speakers and other media equipment is nothing new, but this ultra-limited-edition (and curiously named) "Stringless Pleasure" stereo rack--created by architect Chi-wing Lo, according to Dvice--takes the concept to an entirely new level. Why? Not only does it have high-end gear built into its shelves, but the system also has plenty of storage space for discs and other media--which we think could just as easily be used a wine rack.

Making champagne is by no means carbon neutral, as tree-hugging teetotalers might like to note. Carbon dioxide causes the bubbles, after all.

To be exact, champagne makers have determined that making each bottle of bubbly causes the release of 200 grams of carbon dioxide.

Cheers to carbon dioxide. More is involved in every bottle of bubbly than in other wines.

(Credit: Elsa Wenzel/CNET)

Some champagne makers want to shrink emissions by 25 percent within 12 years and up to 75 percent by 2050. They announced the goals Tuesday at the Bordeaux Carbon Initiative, one of many recent events by vintners seeking to green their craft.

The figures do not include all sparkling wine, such as Spanish cava, made outside the Champagne region of France. The methode champenoise was born in Champagne, and only its sparkling wine can claim on the label to be true champagne.

The largest portion of that local industry's carbon emissions--39 percent--comes from bottling and packaging, with another 24 percent released in the process of making the wine, according to the champagne industry. And transportation of wine and workers makes up 13 percent, use of equipment comprise 11 percent, and products used in cellars and vines contribute another 8 percent of emissions.

The Champagne region of France releases 197,000 tons of CO2 each year--about the same as an average British city, according to Decanter Magazine.

Winemakers in Bordeaux, France, meanwhile are trying to tally the greenhouse gas emissions of grape growing, cultivating, packing, and shipping every type of wine. One Bordeaux winemaking family is harvesting sunflowers to make biofuel to power its tractors, according to the AFP.

In sunny California, winemakers are also pushing to reduce their carbon emissions. Last year Shafer Vineyards became the first to switch fully to solar power in Napa and Sonoma counties, where organic and biodynamic wine cultivation have been popular for decades. However, many oenephiles might point out that viticulture and viniculture around the world have been clean, green, and organic for centuries, if not millennia.

Sadly, my colleagues in Barcelona for the GSMA Mobile World Congress last week didn't learn more on the subject by catching the International Climate Change and Wine conference, where Al Gore keynoted.

Winemakers received access to their first tailor-made carbon footprint calculator in December.

Next-generation Web technologies are also enabling wine lovers to assemble virtual cellars and establish new communities. Web 2.0 tools for wine consumers include Snooth, Vinfolio, Bottletalk and Cork'd.

Google is funding work to ensure the Windows version of Adobe Systems' Photoshop and other Creative Suite software can run on Linux computers.

For the project, Google is funding programmers at CodeWeavers, a company whose open-source Wine software lets Windows software run on Linux. Wine is a compatibility layer that intercepts a program's Windows commands and converts them to instructions for the Linux kernel and its graphics subsystem.

"We hired CodeWeavers to make Photoshop CS and CS2 work better under Wine," Dan Kegel, of Google's software engineering team and the Wine 1.0 release manager, said on Google's open-source blog. "Photoshop is one of those applications that desktop Linux users are constantly clamoring for, and we're happy to say they work pretty well now...We look forward to further improvements in this area."

Google already uses Wine for the Linux version of its Picasa software for editing, tagging, and uploading photos. Photoshop is a larger and more complicated package, however, not to mention updated to version CS3 for nearly a year, so it's likely the CodeWeavers programmers will have a lot of work on their hands.

A survey by desktop Linux advocate Novell found Photoshop is the top non-Linux application that Linux users would like to have. Although Adobe has dipped its toes into the desktop Linux waters, so far it hasn't made any major moves.

And with current technology trends, maybe Adobe never will see the need for Linux ports. With virtualization software from companies such as Parallels and VMware and improving support from chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel, it's getting easier to run multiple operating systems on the same computer.

(Via Matthew Aslett of The 451 Group.)

(Credit: Carlo Rossi Vineyards)

Finally, there's a use for all the empty wine jugs that have been piling up in the basement.

The Sangria Surround Sound System from Carlo Rossi features jugs that once contained the Iberian nectar, according to Gearfuse, but presumably the speakers could be made from our brands as well. The 4.5-liter jugs are elevated by stands of neon tubes and rings that are sure to add the touch of class required for your next formal affair.

But don't go draining that Thunderbird yet. The specs sheet (PDF) bears this disclaimer: "Warning: Let's just say these speakers are more 'art' than 'fidelity.' ... These speakers are definitely not to code. So do not try this at home." Oh well. We would never have been able to peel off all those labels anyway, especially with compromised motor skills.

This graph shows the activity in the brain's pleasure center; there's more activity with wine subjects think costs $90 a bottle (top line) than the same wine priced at $10. The arrow shows the moment when the subjects started tasting the wine.

(Credit: CalTech, Stanford)

In a study that could make marketing managers and salespeople rub their hands with glee, scientists have used brain-scanning technology to shed new light on the old adage, "You get what you pay for."

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Stanford's business school have directly seen that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag.

Specifically, the researchers found that with the higher priced wines, more blood and oxygen is sent to a part of the brain called the medial orbitofrontal cortex, whose activity reflects pleasure. Brain scanning using a method called functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) showed evidence for the researchers' hypothesis that "changes in the price of a product can influence neural computations associated with experienced pleasantness," they said.

The study, by Hilke Plassmann, John O'Doherty, Baba Shiv, and Antonio Rangel, was published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This chart shows that people ranked taste of a $45 wine higher than the same wine priced at $5, and the same for a different wine marked $90 and $10.

(Credit: CalTech, Stanford)

The research, along with other studies the authors allude to, are putting a serious dent in economists' notions that experienced pleasantness of a product is based on its intrinsic qualities.

"Contrary to the basic assumptions of economics, several studies have provided behavioral evidence that marketing actions can successfully affect experienced pleasantness by manipulating nonintrinsic attributes of goods. For example, knowledge of a beer's ingredients and brand can affect reported taste quality, and the reported enjoyment of a film is influenced by expectations about its quality," the researchers said. "Even more intriguingly, changing the price at which an energy drink is purchased can influence the ability to solve puzzles."